


Seismic Shift

by igrockspock



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Cave-In, Episode: What They Become, F/M, Getting Together, POV Female Character, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3072446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only way Melinda May would admit how she feels about Phil Coulson is if the world were ending.  Unfortunately, now that they're trapped at the bottom of a pit, half the team is missing, and San Juan is plagued by mysterious earthquakes, the end seems pretty well nigh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seismic Shift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).



Coulson, Skye, Tripp, and Mack are in the bottom of a cave with an alien obelisk, possibly never to return, and that makes Melinda May the acting director of SHIELD. That means she should stay above ground, directing the rescue and recovery operation, but instead she straps herself into a harness and prepares to lower herself into the pit.

Simmons watches her with wet and wary eyes, and Melinda pulls her aside roughly.

"I'm going to get them," she says, slowly and clearly.

Simmons nods eagerly. "Just tell me what you need. We'll figure it out."

Melinda fixes her with a hard stare. "That's not what this is about. If I don't come back, you're in charge."

Simmons' jaw drops. "Agent May, with all due respect, surely there's someone else. I've hardly got the experience, and Agent Morse --"

"I don't have time to argue." Melinda tucks a flare gun into her belt, followed by an actual gun. "Agent Morse has something on the side, so be careful." 

She clips the guide rope onto her harness and steels herself for a barrage of questions. When it doesn't come, she looks up at Simmons. 

Simmons licks her lips. Her mouth opens and closes. She takes a deep breath. "Is there anything else I should know?"

Melinda nods. "My password is qxr7-asterisk-hashtag-97k48-ampersand. Can you remember that?" 

"I have an eidetic memory," Simmons says, smiling slightly. "But then, you already knew that."

"I did." She reaches out and squeezes Simmons' shoulder impulsively. "You're in the system as my back-up already. You're capable of more than you know. Get the others to safety. If you can come back for us, do. If you can't, SHIELD is in your hands."

She jumps into the hole.

***

The footsteps in the dust are easy enough to follow. The big ones are Mack's; the smallest belong to Skye and Raina, and the ones in the middle are probably Phil's. There are tiny drops of blood, but that's good news -- it's only Phil's old injuries, not a murder scene.

She finds Mack first, sprawled on the ground like a discarded doll. A perfect agent would run to check his pulse and his breathing, but when she catches sight of Phil collapsed against a stone wall, her heart catches in her throat and she runs toward him instead.

The first tremor is so faint she thinks she imagined it. The second is a long, slow roll and a deep groan that reminds her of her childhood in California. Phil's eyes widen and she flings herself on top of him just before the first huge jolt. Her glow stick flies from her hand and gutters out, leaving her with nothing but the sound of rocks crumbling and Phil's ragged breathing in her ear.

When the shaking stops, her whole body feels wobbly. Phil lets go of her first. She hadn't even realized how tightly he was holding onto her until the warmth of his hands vanishes from her waist. Letting go of him is harder than it should be, but she forces herself to slide off his lap.

"Are you --" she croaks, but the words dissolve into a fit of coughing before she can finish asking if Phil's okay.

He answers with a long, hacking cough of his own, so Melinda supposes he's at least half alive.

"Did the world just end?" Phil gasps finally.

Melinda's attempt at a chuckle quickly devolves into another cough. "That seems possible," she manages.

"What are you doing here?" he asks.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"I thought I told you to evacuate everyone."

"I did," Melinda says, rolling her eyes. As if she would ever neglect the safety of her team.

"Then why are you here?" Phil asks.

She snorts. "Well, my boss went on a crazy search and rescue op all by himself, and when it went to shit, there was no one to get him out but me."

"Agent May, I distinctly remember telling you that if anything ever happened to me, your duty was to SHIELD," Phil says. Melinda can imagine the mild, reproving look on his face. It had always made her heart sink in a way that Fury's most baleful one-eyed stare never could, but hell if she's admitting that now.

"You caught me. I came down here to find your body and see if I could lay claim to a ragtag international intelligence agency." She sighs. "Can it, Phil. I'm not ever going to leave you to die. If you want someone who'll do that, find a new deputy director."

"I'll add that to my to-do list," Phil mutters.

"Good luck." Melinda starts ticking off the options on her fingers. "Skye would never leave you for dead, and Simmons is way too soft-hearted."

Phil murmurs his agreement at that. "So who does that leave?"

"Well, Hunter would probably let you die. But I wouldn't trust him to baby-sit a hamster, much less run an intelligence agency. Bobbi can be ruthless, and she's a good agent, but she does have that mysterious thing going on the side."

"Do you really think she's Hydra?" Phil asks. 

Do most people have personnel discussions when they're trapped at the bottom of a pit after an earthquake? Melinda wonders. No, probably not, but they aren't most people. 

"I don't think so," Melinda says. "Not unless they brainwashed her while she was embedded...but if that were the case, Hydra would hardly have needed so much help figuring out the obelisk." And really, if you were some kind of superspy automaton, why fuck Hunter? Especially in a place where security cameras could see it?

"That's fair," Phil says. It's not like this is a new discussion; they've had it about every member of the team a hundred times already. "So what do you think she _is_ doing?"

Melinda shakes her head. "A back-up plan, probably. Someplace to go if SHIELD falls apart." 

The thought doesn't bother her as much as it should. Morse is a good agent, but her weakness is her faith in her own invulnerability. That means Melinda will catch her at whatever she's doing long before she's a security threat. Assuming, of course, that the earthquake wasn't step one of the apocalypse.

They fall into silence for a moment, listening to the darkness. There's no sound but their breathing and an occasional pebble falling to the ground.

"What do you think they're doing up there?" Phil asks finally. How like him, not to assume they're all dead. But then, they've been beating the odds all year, haven't they?

"I doubt they could have made it to the bus before the earthquake hit," Melinda says, "but they probably had time to get to the surface at least. They'll be together, and Morse will handle short-term survival while Fitz and Simmons figure out long-term solutions. And Hunter will do whatever Bobbi tells him to do."

"Their odds are decent then," Phil says. Neither of them talk about the possibility of rescue. Fitz and Simmons would _want_ to help, of course, but that doesn't change the fact that they're trapped under tons of rock in a place where technology doesn't work.

"And Mac...?" Melinda's voice trails off. If she'd known that the earthquake was coming, would she have acted differently? Would she have tried to drag him out of the way before she ran to Phil?

Phil draws a heavy breath. "We'll have to trust that the temple has some way of protecting its own."

They lapse into silence again. Melinda imagines she's not the only one wondering what happened to Skye and Tripp when the rocks started to fall. The odds are grimmer than she cares to think about. If Raina was right, if Skye really was special and the obelisk had activated some secret power -- but no, superpowers are from comic books. After the earthquake, it seems more likely that Hydra had been right, that the obelisk had been a weapon of mass destruction all along.

Phil breaks the silence first. "As your director, I think you acted inappropriately by coming down here," he says. He nudges her with his elbow. "But as your slightly selfish friend, I'm glad I'm not alone in the dark, so thank you."

Melinda manages a chuckle. "Well, if there had to be a mass extinction event induced by an alien obelisk, I'm glad I got to spend it with you." 

She'd had logical reasons for coming down here. SHIELD couldn't possibly survive losing half of its best operatives, and she and Phil had decided a long time ago to be less cold and calculating about human lives than Fury. But the truth is, she's down here because surviving Phil's death twice is more than she can bear, and anway, if she doesn't look after him, who will?

"You know, it's been ages since we've gotten to have a real conversation," Phil says. "Since before we found the map, probably, maybe even longer." His tone is conversational, but something in it makes Melinda tense. Something big is coming, she can tell.

"Well, now we have as long as two Cliff bars and one canteen will hold us," she answers, keeping her tone light.

"I hope you have the white chocolate macademia kind. Those are my favorite," Phil says.

_Stalling_ , Melinda thinks, but she can play that game too.

"Oddly, I didn't have a chance to check the flavors," she says. "I was a little more concerned with keeping you alive."

"Right. Priorities." Melinda hears Phil's clothing rustle as he shifts against the wall. He swallows. "Actually, Mel, as long as we're here, there is something I've been meaning to ask you."

_Mel._ Nicknames are dangerous. There's no longer any possibility this is about making Simmons their official third-in-command, or whether she really _has_ to draw a dick on Hunter's face everytime he falls asleep on the sofa. 

"What is it?" she asks, her voice carefully netural.

"What you said before, when we thought I might lose it like Garett did, about taking me out to the desert and taking care of me...that's pretty _unconditional_." Phil clears his throat, and Melinda waits quietly for him to finish. "It's -- and forgive me if I'm wrong here -- it's not really something someone does for a _friend_."

Well. He had to figure it out _sometime_ , didn't he? She looks over at him, but it's too dark to see his face. 

"No," she says finally. "It's not." Her throat feels tight, and she wonders if he can hear it in her voice. She feels too strange and jittery to know what she sounds like.

She hears Phil swallow in the dark. "Why didn't you -- why didn't you say anything?"

Melinda shakes her head, not that Phil can see that. "It didn't seem like the time. Our world was ending. And you were already giving me enough."

He knew how she took her coffee. He always left her the last slice of pizza. If she fell asleep in his office, she woke up with a blanket tucked around her shoulders -- or his jacket. And that was before she counted the hours of silent companionship, when they both knew everything in the world was wrong except the connection between them. Who needed three little words after that?

Phil's voice is soft now. "What if I would've wanted to give you more?"

They're sitting close enough to feel each other's body heat. His hand is inches from hers. Less than that. Half an inch, maybe. If either one of them reached out --

She stills the thought and forces a dry chuckle. "Well, up until recently, I thought you might be crazy." 

Being the director of SHIELD and carving mysterious circles on the wall at all hours of the day and night seemed like enough for one person to handle. No need to add a relationship on top of it.

"What else?" Phil asks. The question is quick, the tone demanding. He knows her too well to let her get away with a half-truth.

Melinda shifts toward him in the darkness. She _hates_ having a conversation like this when she can't see his face.

"I didn't know if _I_ could be that vulnerable," she admits. "After Ward, after Hydra... it seemed easier just to _be_."

Phil closes the gap between their hands. He doesn't take her hand, just lets his fingers rest against hers. "This doesn't have to change anything, Mel. We can still just be."

Melinda looks at him, and she can feel him looking back. "You know it's not that simple, Phil. Relationships are a mess. I think my marriage proved that."

She wonders why they're even having this conversation. The world had probably already ended, and even if it hadn't, she and Phil are trapped down here. There's no future to plan for. But then, maybe that's the only reason either of them can afford to talk about these things.

Phil snorts. "Marrying Clint Barton was always going to be a mess." 

Now he actually _does_ take her hand, and Melinda tries to ignore the warmth of his fingers against hers.

"Did you really think you could lose me, Mel?" he asks. "I _died_. You spied on me for Fury. SHIELD fell apart and I started carving all the crazy circles on the walls. And we're _both_ still here."

"Is this the part where we declare our love for each other and have we-didn't-die sex?" Melinda asks. 

Phil leans closer and stage whispers in her ear. "Don't tell May -- I hear she's kind of skittish about this stuff -- but I think we just did the first one. In a subtle, understated way, of course." He closes the last of the distance between them with a small groan. "As for the second one...you ever notice how heroes in action movies never have broken ribs, or that weird whistling noise in their breathing that means they probably punctured a lung? Apparently -- and don't tell May this either -- I'm not an action hero." 

"Rain check on the sex, then," she says, and Phil drops his head onto her shoulder. "You want me to keep you awake in case you have a concussion and internal bleeding?"

Melinda feels Phil smile against her shoulder.

"Told you nothing has to change," he says. "You keep me alive, I keep you from running from your emotions...just like old times. The only thing that's different is we both get a soft place to fall."

Melinda forces herself not to make a quip, even though she very much doubts that anything about her shoulder is soft. The truth is, Phil is going to say terrible and romantic things like this _all the time_ now, and she calculates that she has to let him get away with at least half of them if she's going to keep their relationship intact -- for however many hours or days they have left, anyway. She relaxes against the stone wall as much as she can, concentrating on Phil's warmth against her side. It hurts and feels good at the same time, like coming in from the hold and warming up her hands over a fire.

That's when Phil says, "You know, I don't think we're going to die in here. It's probably not even the end of the world. "

"Two tons of solid rock say differently," Melinda says. She's not a pessimist, but she _is_ a realist, and their situation seems pretty clear.

"I don't know," Phil says. "Before, with Loki, that felt like the end. This doesn't. I don't know how, but we're going to get out somehow."

How like Phil, to be so Pollyanna in the face of such incredible odds. Well. Sort of like Phil. She frowns.

"Are you actually in the grips of some insane fit of idealism, or was the whole end-of-the-world thing bullshit to get me to talk about my feellings?" she asks.

"Actually, I was being facetious when I asked if the world was ending. You're the one who ran with it," Phil says. "I only said I was glad I wasn't alone in the dark, which was true."

So. She told Phil about her feelings because she thought they would die, and Phil told her about his because he thought they would live. And the bastard was probably right.

"You planted the idea," she says.

"It's possible Romanov rubbed off on me," he says, level as ever. "But I swear I had no idea how far you were going to take it." 

"I hate you," she says.

"No, I think you actually said you love me. Well, you implied it pretty strongly anyway." With an agility that defies someone with broken ribs and a punctured lung, he somehow manages to snake an arm around her waist, and she can't even move away because his head is still on her shoulder and she doesn't want to risk dropping him to the floor.

"Nope, definitely hate you," she says through gritted teeth. It's a shame he can't see her; her glare is positively murderous. At least he probably can't tell how warm the pressure of his hand on her hip is making her feel.

Just then, the ground starts to tremble. Melinda throws herself on top of Phil just as the wall behind them collapses. They fall backward together, his hand cupping the back of her head, his face pressed against her neck. She squeezes her eyes shut, but it doesn't matter, they're filling with dust anyway. Dirt coats the back of her throat, and the sound of splintering, grinding rocks fills her ears. And she's sorry now that Phil was wrong, that this is the end, that there's no chance to say anything else -- and then the world goes quiet. A cool breeze caresses her face. She opens her eyes and high above them is a shaft of light.

Phil pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "See?" he says. "I told you we were going to get out of here alive." 

FitzSimmons finds them kissing on top of the rubble.


End file.
